She daydreamed for a while, imagining the two of them growing closer. But it was only a daydream and would never come true since it had turned out to be Phoebe that he wanted after all. There had only been such a short time of happiness until her hopes had been shattered.
She wiped away a tear on the back of her hand. Whether or not William loved her, she was still fearful that he would sicken and die. And now Father was dead and the twins, Martha and Henry, Jane Quick, Peg and Emmanuel had all gone. In a strange way she even missed Arabella and her children.
Her belly moved as the child within stirred and she cupped the pointed little heel with her palm as it pushed against her skin. Sorrow and unrequited love made miserable companions; if it hadn’t been for the baby she might have turned her face to the wall and never opened her eyes again. Her head drooped with exhaustion. One by one she took the pins out of her hair and let it fall around her shoulders. She sat quietly for a while, then undressed and went to bed.
The long, shrill cry pierced the night, shocking Susannah awake. She was out of bed and in the corridor with her heart racing before she realised where she was.
The terrible wail of desolation came again, making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She followed the sound, running up the stairs to the attic as fast as her bulk would allow her.
Phoebe stood at the top of the stairs with Joseph clutched to her breast. Wild-eyed, she couldn’t speak but shrieked and ran towards Susannah.
‘Phoebe, what is it?’ She caught hold of the woman’s arm and shook her. ‘Tell me!’
Gasping for breath, Phoebe held Joseph out towards her with shaking hands.
The child’s face and chest were blotched purplish-red around the flea bites and his breathing laboured. Susannah could feel the heat radiating from his little body. ‘He has a fever,’ she said.
Wailing all the while, Phoebe turned Joseph’s head.
Susannah became very still. A large swelling on the side of his neck was already blackening. ‘Sweet Lord!’ she whispered. ‘It’s the plague.’
Phoebe shrieked again and ran back into her attic room.
Cold with shock, Susannah stood in the corridor, her mind unable to grasp this terrible turn of events. It was Agnes’s voice, sharp with anxiety, calling from the foot of the stairs which shook her out of her stupor.
‘What is it, Susannah?’
‘Don’t come up! It’s Joseph. He’s been stricken.’
Agnes let out a small mew of terror. ‘Listen to me, Agnes!’
The old woman nodded her head, leaning heavily upon her stick for support.
All at once Susannah became icy calm. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth while she ordered her thoughts. It was obvious what she had to do. William had been prepared to sacrifice himself for her father’s sake and now she, too, must be prepared to risk her own life in doing what she could for William’s son.
‘I shall remain here in the attics with Phoebe and Joseph,’ she said. ‘You must stay in your part of the house and you may avoid the infection. Mistress Oliver shall leave us water and provisions at the foot of the stairs every day but no one is to come up. Do you understand?’
Agnes nodded again.
‘We will need a bottle of my Plague Prevention Syrup from the still room, bitter herbs to fumigate the rooms and enough coal to keep the fire burning. Oh, and a small pan, a skimming spoon and some muslin. And will you fetch my apothecary’s box?’
‘Whatever you need! We must inform the watchmen. I shall call out of the window.’ Purposeful now, Agnes turned and hobbled away.
Phoebe hunched on the edge of the bed, keening as she rocked Joseph in her arms.
‘Phoebe?’ Susannah sat down beside her. ‘All is not lost yet. Let me look at him.’ She gently prised Phoebe’s fingers loose, took Joseph from her and laid him on the bed. Carefully, she removed Joseph’s nightshirt, leaving him naked except for his silver collar, and examined the bubo on his neck. Then, her heart sinking, she discovered that there was another one forming under his arm. He moaned when she pressed it, his eyelids fluttering.
‘He will die,’ whispered Phoebe. ‘My son will die.’
‘I’m not giving up on him yet and you mustn’t either. He may be able to hear you and you must encourage him to fight this pestilence. But now we need to bring his temperature down or the heat will cause an inflammation of the brain and he’ll have fits. Fetch me a basin of water and a cloth.’
Phoebe looked at her with dull, brown eyes but didn’t move.
‘Do it! Now!’
Startled, Phoebe stood up.
Susannah opened the attic window to let out some of the oppressive August heat and set Phoebe to bathe the small body on the bed. After a while she touched Joseph’s forehead with the back of her hand but he was still dangerously hot. She made Phoebe help her to drag the bed closer to the window so that the breeze could play upon his damp skin.
Agnes called up and Susannah went to the top of the stairs.
‘We have brought all that you asked for and I will leave this little bell for you. Ring it if you need anything.’
‘Will you let me have the key for Joseph’s silver collar? It constricts his neck and increases his body heat.’
Agnes thrust a gnarled hand into the placket of her skirt and pulled out her pocket. Painstakingly she pulled apart the drawstrings and took out the key. ‘I will put it here for you.’ She placed it upon the lid of the apothecary’s box.
‘Now leave us.’
‘I shall pray for you.’
‘Let us hope that the Lord is listening, then.’
After Agnes had gone, Susannah made several journeys up and down the stairs to carry up all the items she had requested. Out of breath, she sat for a moment on the top step, holding her belly and rubbing at the ache in her back.
To avoid overheating the sick child she made a small fire in the grate of what had been Peg’s room. She tipped the coal out of the bucket onto the floor beside the hearth and then lifted some of the glowing coals from the grate and put them in the coal bucket. From her apothecary’s box she took out several packets of dried herbs and sprinkled them over the coals. Holding the smoking bucket at arm’s length she carried it into the sickroom.
‘This will purify the air,’ she said. ‘How is he now?’
‘Hot. Very hot,’ whispered Phoebe.
Coughing, Joseph twitched and muttered, his breathing harsh and uneven.
Susannah took the key from her pocket and unlocked the silver collar. Carefully she unhinged it and pulled it away from the thin little neck, exposing the dreadful purple swelling. Weighing the collar in her hand, she was shocked at how heavy it was.
‘You must keep bathing him, Phoebe. And I will make him some medicine.’ Taking a phial, she shook out a small quantity of willow bark into a pan. This she heated upon the fire until the liquid seethed and then she strained it through muslin and carried it back to the sickbed.
Phoebe propped the child up in her arms while Susannah dripped the willow tea into his mouth from a spoon.
All day they sat beside Joseph, taking it in turns to sponge him. The buboes grew larger, the skin around them blotched and angry. Susannah laid on hot cloths and poultices in an attempt to draw the poison to the surface.
Barely conscious, Joseph coughed and struggled for breath.
Susannah listened out for the church bells and every four hours spooned a little more of the willow bark tea into the child’s mouth.
The light began to fade and Phoebe fell asleep with her head on the pillow beside her son.
Susannah lit the candles and sat watching Joseph’s chest rise and fall. She could feel the heat radiating off him. She bathed him again, wiping the sweat off his face and neck. By now she knew every curve of his face and body; the usually smooth coffee-coloured skin so horribly blotched and empurpled. Propping him up on the pillow to ease his breathing, she went to fetch more hot cloths to lay on the buboes. He moaned and stirred as she
pressed the linen down but the fever continued to rage.
Phoebe slept and Susannah let her be. She would wake soon enough if Joseph took a sudden turn for the worse.
There was nothing in the world that mattered any more outside this room lit only by flickering candles; not her dead father or her lost hopes of finding love, only this child, William’s child, fighting to live.
Shortly after three in the morning, over the harsh sound of Joseph’s coughing, Susannah heard the bellman in the distance and then the dead-cart’s wheels rolling over the cobbles. She shivered and gathered the boy into her arms, resting his hot little head against her chest, willing him to breathe.
As the first rosy light of dawn filtered through the attic window Susannah opened her eyes and lifted her chin off the top of Joseph’s woolly head to find Phoebe staring at her. Stretching her legs, Susannah grimaced as pins and needles pricked at her feet. The room was cooler now; at least until the merciless heat of the midday sun began to beat down upon the roof again.
Phoebe took the child from her, kissing his face and rocking him. Susannah brewed more willow tea and tore the crust off the loaf that Agnes had left for them. ‘You must eat,’ she said, handing a piece to Phoebe.
The corners of Phoebe’s mouth turned down and she turned her head away.
‘If you don’t eat you’ll not be strong enough to fight the infection.’
‘Why d’you care? Why you help us? We are only your slaves.’
Susannah pushed her hair off her face. ‘Why are you always so hostile to me?’ she said, too exhausted to be polite. ‘You are never so rude to any of the others in this household.’
Phoebe shrugged, her bottom lip pushed out. ‘You think you’re better than me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Joseph and me are your slaves. We have no life.’ Phoebe smiled slyly. ‘But William love me. You jealous of me?’
All at once Susannah’s patience snapped. Of course she was jealous that William had gone to Phoebe’s bed but she was not prepared to be taunted about it. ‘I’m not jealous,’ she lied, ‘just not prepared to accept your impertinence. You’ve been sullen and ungrateful ever since you came here. Well, I’m sick of it and I’m sick of you! I don’t want you to be my slave; I never asked for you to be sent here and you should be thankful that you weren’t thrown out into the streets to fend for yourself. I don’t care that Joseph is Dr Ambrose’s son. All I’m trying to do is to help him and I have no intention of wasting my time discussing your insolence. Now move out of my way and let me give the child his medicine!’
Phoebe stared at her for a moment, amazement on her face.
That’s shaken her, thought Susannah with some satisfaction.
Phoebe slowly retreated and stood in the corner, watching Susannah administer the willow tea.
‘If you want to do something useful, go and heat up the poultice mixture in the pan and bring it to me,’ she instructed. She breathed out slowly, letting the tension drain away. Surprisingly, succumbing to bad manners and saying exactly what she felt made her feel a great deal better.
The remainder of that day passed with no more than a few essential words exchanged between them but Susannah was conscious of Phoebe’s covert glances all day long.
That night it was Susannah’s turn to fall into a doze. Her back ached and she curled up on the end of the bed and closed her eyes.
Phoebe shook her awake, snatching at her arm. ‘Missus! Missus!’
‘Joseph?’ Susannah sat up so suddenly that she went dizzy. After all her efforts she couldn’t bear to lose him now!
‘See!’ said Phoebe. She peeled up a corner of the poultice on Joseph’s neck.
Susannah hastily put a hand over her mouth and nose. The bubo had burst and foul-smelling matter had erupted through the poultice cloth and oozed down the child’s neck.
Holding her breath, she peered at the crater left behind. ‘We must clean this wound straight away. Fetch me some water and a cloth.’ She moved the candle closer and examined the boy’s chest. Some of the blotching had faded from his skin and his struggle for breath was less tortured.
The wound continued to suppurate through the night and by first light the swelling under his arm had grown.
‘He’s still very hot,’ said Susannah, feeling his forehead. ‘I wonder …’
Phoebe looked at her, a question in her eyes.
‘Yes.’ Decisively, Susannah opened the apothecary box and took out a sharp little knife. She tested the blade on her finger and Phoebe made a small sound under her breath. ‘Hold him still!’ said Susannah.
The bubo was the size of a gull’s egg. Susannah studied it for a moment, then pushed the point of the blade into the swelling and stepped back as the poison spurted from the wound.
Joseph’s eyes opened wide and he let out a cry.
Phoebe murmured to him as Susannah made a cut an inch long and watched as the remaining poison seeped out. She bathed the wound and set a fresh poultice upon it. ‘All we can do now is to wait,’ she said.
They sat together watching the sleeping child while Susannah fretted about William and Jennet. They would be anxious because she hadn’t come to bring them provisions. She worried about this all afternoon until eventually she went to the top of the stairs and rang the little bell Agnes had given her.
When Agnes came to the landing below, fear and expectation written upon her face, Susannah quickly brought her up to date with Joseph’s progress. ‘But I haven’t taken food to William and Jennet,’ she said.
‘I sent one of the street children to pass on the news and take them some of our beans,’ said Agnes. ‘Our storeroom is still full of emergency rations. Plain food, maybe, but we won’t starve. So who’s laughing now, miss?’
‘We’re lucky that you’re a woman of such sound sense, Agnes.’
‘We’re short of meat, though. Our watchman tells me the butcher’s shop is shut up. Two of their children carried off on the cart, already.’
‘So Joseph must have caught the infection from the butcher’s boys. Let us pray he is stronger than they were.’
By six o’clock that evening Joseph’s temperature had dropped a little. He still had a rattling cough but his breathing had eased. He turned from side to side and cried; pitiful weak cries but he was at least conscious of his surroundings.
Phoebe and Susannah drank the bean soup which Mistress Oliver left for them, sitting in silence on each side of the sickbed.
Joseph whimpered quietly and Phoebe put down her bowl and stroked his forehead. She began to sing to him, her husky voice crooning a strange little song so full of suppressed emotion that Susannah felt the tears spring to her eyes. In her weariness she put her head down on her arms lest the slave see her cry. Then Phoebe began to sing something that sounded like a lullaby and after a while Joseph quietened.
Susannah listened to the child’s steady breathing and the rise and fall of Phoebe’s singing and, try as she might, was unable to open her eyes.
Chapter 27
Susannah stood by the attic window watching the seagulls swooping and wheeling over the river. It was hard to breathe in the heat of the attic so it made her feel easier when she could look outside. She rubbed her aching back and envied the gulls their freedom of movement, longing to feel light and energetic again herself. But, of course, it wasn’t only pregnancy that weighed her down but the burden of grief and fear.
She spread her hands out over her ripe belly, pressing her fingers into the taut skin and feeling the shape of her baby. He had little room to move now and when she was naked she would watch his elbows and heels pushing up peaks of skin as he stretched. In a month, God willing, he would be here. She smiled a little and tried hard not to think of her labours to come. At least they would all be out of quarantine by then, assuming none of them sickened.
‘Missus?’ Phoebe stood in the doorway.
‘Joseph?’ Susannah’s mouth went dry.
‘C
ome!’
The boy lay back on the pillow, his eyes closed.
Susannah felt his forehead and his eyes opened. ‘The fever has broken!’ she said. She lifted up the wrappings to examine the wounds on his neck and in his armpit. ‘Look, Phoebe! I do believe this is weeping less than before.’
Phoebe nodded, her brown eyes round with hope.
‘Mammy?’
‘Yes, baby?’ Phoebe stroked his cheek.
‘Mammy, I’m hungry.’
Susannah and Phoebe looked at each other in wonder.
‘I’ll ask Mistress Oliver to send up some of her bean soup,’ said Susannah.
Phoebe fed Joseph the soup little by little from a spoon until the bowl was empty. He rubbed his tummy and rolled his eyes, making his audience laugh.
Phoebe’s too-loud laughter turned into tears of relief, great gulping sobs that were unstoppable.
Susannah took her in her arms and patted her back, murmuring soothing words while Joseph watched his mother with frightened eyes.
Something had shifted in the way Phoebe behaved towards Susannah. Reprieved from her terror that Joseph would die, euphoria made her animated. In the long, hot hours that they sat by the child’s bedside over the following days while he gradually recovered, Phoebe talked about the plantation where she had spent most of her life.
‘My mammy came to the plantation when it still new but Massa Savage, Massa Henry’s father that is, picked Mammy out of the fields and made her a house slave. My brother Erasmus was newborn then and Mammy was nurse to Massa Henry, too.’
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